2023 NBA Draft Team Recap: Cleveland Cavaliers
After an explosive 2022 NBA offseason for the Cleveland Cavaliers that landed star Donovan Mitchell, new GM Mike Gansey worked around the margins in 2023.
The Cavaliers already had a plethora of top end talent with Mitchell, Darius Garland, Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen, but added some very interesting supplemental pieces in Max Strus and George Niang. While the organization has taken an approach of adding talent to win-now for the majority of their moves in the past two off-seasons, they took a future swing for the fences with the No. 49 pick in the 2023 NBA Draft.
Even though he was a late second-round pick, Emoni Bates is one of the most well known prospects in this class. A top recruit coming out of high school in Michigan, he initially started his career playing for Penny Hardaway at Memphis.
After an inefficient season with the Tigers he decided to transfer back to Michigan to play for Eastern Michigan University. While the raw box score stats exploded in his sophomore year - 19.2 points and 5.8 rebounds per game - the efficiency struggles mainly stayed the same. Bates barely shot over 40% from the field and right at 33% from beyond the 3-point line.
Questions remained about what his ultimate role could be for an NBA franchise considering his ball dominance and lack of discretion with shot selection. Even so, there is no denying the raw talent of the 6-foot-10 guard and that shined through at NBA Summer League. Those same efficiency issues were non-existent as he not only averaged more than 17 points per game but did so on 44-40-100 shooting splits.
The rangy wing also pulled down six rebounds per game which would provide a great additional value to his scoring. This was a great start and positive growth from Bates and it will be intriguing to watch for that development throughout his rookie season.
That will most likely be with the Cleveland Charge as he continues to grow his game and find the role that best suits his talent. A role with the Cavaliers could come soon for the 19-year-old, as Isaac Okoro will be a restricted free agent (RFA) after this season and Caris LeVert will hit unrestricted free agency the year after that.
Should Bates’ progress take an exponential trajectory it would not be surprising to see the team move on from those players in favor of the young prospect.
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